Canadian by birth, Southern (Ontario) by the Grace of God.- yeah it's a Lynyrd Skynyrd reference

Thursday, March 31, 2005

I mentioned how much I am enjoying Moby's new CD, Hotel. The links can be found on an earlier entry. I know some people are getting bent out of shape because the second disc has nothing but ambient songs; to them I say, get over yourself. Listen, Moby started out as a punk rocker, so if he wants to experiment and grow his reportoire, who are we to argue. Both CD's are fabulous.

The first one, which contains his electronica based work has some wonderful dance cuts. I think my favourite is "Lift Me Up". Talk about dancing, I've got it in the iPod and it's a tune to move your body with. In fact last night I was a live iPod commercial all by myself.

Here are words so you can follow along as you groove to the beat:

Blind talking (blind talking)
Take us so far (take us so far)
Broken down cars (broken down cars)
Like stronger old stars (like stronger old stars)

Blind talking (blind talking)
Served us so well (served us so well)
Travelled trough hell (travelled trough hell)
We know how it felt (we know how it felt)

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Hey, I've been doing this blogging thing for a year now! Happy birthday to this site. As I read some of my posts I'm amazed at the level of ranting that went on, especially during the federal election. Guess I got a little overheated there. Not that I'm at all apologetic, those scondrels deserve a few litres of my bile.

What I have also learned is there is more then going off on a triade, need balance in life to have a full rich one. So, here's a few things that have interested me over the weekend.

1) Just finished reading Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland. I have been a long time fan of his writing and it's amazing what he does. He writes fascinating stories about ordinary people. This one deals with a woman, Liz who is alone. She is like the character from the Beatle song "Eleanor Rigby", in fact she uses that name for her email, she has no real friends and only interacts with her family; no one calls, no one visits, she is one of those lonely people. She is the type that is ignored, then her son comes to back in her life, a child conceived during a school trip to Europe. Her life changes and, well read the book if you want to know more. What has impressed me about Douglas Coupland's book is the spiritual undercurrent that exists, his characters are often searching for more meaning to their lives and often there is a quest for God. This book is no different. I will confess there were tears in my eyes at the end, it is that good.

2) Moby's new CD is great. Hotel is great and worth purchasing and listening on the home stereo or the Ipod, where mine is.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Here's another view of it. One thing I have to say is that Apple makes cool packaging for their ipods. In the box came the headphones, belt hook, usb cable, software, instruction booklets and two Apple stickers. How is that for fun.

This makes sense and before the RIAA breaks open the champagne let's be honest, it has nothing to do with them. You see it goes to the basic standards of people. People are inately honest and will pay for services if they are a good price.

The problem has been people felt they were being gouged by the record industry and the p2p was a reaction to this feeling. Now that there are safe alternatives, such as Itunes and the new Napster. You have to remember that people will pay for good services. The above and to them I do add Puretracks offer good and safe services. We all remember when Jack Valanti went on a ramage against VCR players but it was the VCR that stimulated the movie industry, in fact to a number of movies, it is rentals that make them profitable.

So all, with our Ipods and all that we can have a lot of great sources for tunes.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Last night I took the two hours to watch the above on Historty Television. The show looked at the claims in the book The DaVinci Code. I did read the book and thoroughly enjoyed it, Dan Brown produced a great pager turner of a mystery. I couldn't stop until I finished that's for sure. Now as much as I enjoyed it as a novel it has a lot of flaws when it comes to history, especially the history of the early church.

The narrator, Tony Robinson of Blackadder fame. He played Baldrick, you know hello, my name is Baldrick, yeah we know Sod off Baldrick. He looked at the various claims of the book and considered the history and the legend of the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail has been quite a figure in western legend and stories, Robinson examines such things as the start of the legend, what it could be and where it could be. He visited various sites in both Israel and England. to follow the legend. He spends a fair bit of time at Rosslyn Chapel. Visit this site to read how the Knights Templars and the Freemasons may be involved.

Overall, it is two hours well worth watching. He examines all the claims, from the Priory of Sion to the painting of Leonardo DaVinci. He considers it all and reveals some interesting facts.

If you missed it Wednesday, you can watch it on March 27th, at 7:00 PM.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

It happened this past weekend; I bought the Ipod Mini. It cost me, with a three year service plan, $343.00. I am so excited. Since then I've been putting music on the devise. To date I have U2, Moby, Fiona Apple, Wilco and a number of singles from my fave groups of the 80's. Last time I looked I have about 7 hours worth of music at approximately 560 Meg, so I have about 3.5 gigs to fill, or so.

Friday, March 18, 2005

so here's the deal, Fiona Apple's latest CD is unavailable to the fan. The label didn't release it; however it is available throught the Internet, but people who post it are getting nasty letters from the RIAA.

Okay, so the label doesn't want it out there, I mean obviously they believe there's no interest, but people are downloading it at a huge rate? so what's the problem. If they don't want to release it, then let the fans still listen.

This link will allow you to see the tracks, and well, far be it for me to encourage piracy, but I believe if you right click and then look for the word 'save', something wonderful will happen. so give it a try and see if that wonderful thing will happen.

The Wired article is here if want to get more information.also there's a site called Free Fiona.com with a great deal of interesting information. You can download a poster.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

With tomorrow being St. Patrick's Day, a day to celebrate all things green; I thought i'd include a link to my favourite Irish song. Sing along

Garage Inc. - Whiskey In Teh Jar Lyrics

As I was going over the Cork and Kerry mountains
I saw Captain Farrell and his money he was counting
I first produced my pistol and then produced my rapier
I said "Stand and deliver or the devil he may take ya"
I took all of his money and it was a pretty penny
I took all of his money and I brought it home to Molly
She swore that she'd love me, no, never would she leave me
But the devil take that woman for you know she tricked me easy
Musha ring dum a doo dum a da
Whack for my daddy-o
Whack for my daddy-o
There's whiskey in the jar-o
Being drunk and weary I went to Molly's chamber
Taking my money with me and I never knew the danger
For about six or maybe seven in walked Captain Farrell
I jumped up, fired off my pistols and I shot him with both barrels
Musha ring dum a doo dum a da
Whack for my daddy-o
Whack for my daddy-o
There's whiskey in the jar-o
Now some men like the fishing and some men like the fowling
And some men like to hear, to hear the cannon ball roaring
Me, I like sleeping specially in my Molly's chamber
But here I am in prison, here I am with a ball and chain yeah
Musha ring dum a doo dum a da
Whack for my daddy-o
Whack for my daddy-o
There's whiskey in the jar-o
Musha ring dum a doo dum a da
Musha ring dum a doo dum a da
Musha ring dum a doo dum a da
Musha ring dum a doo dum a da

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Sunday, March 13, 2005

CBC Television - Doctor Who: "Slawko Klymkiw, Executive Director Programming, CBC Television said, 'Bringing back the hugely popular DOCTOR WHO series to fans new and old alike - was an exciting opportunity for CBC. "

This is great news, so mark the calendar, power up the VCR or DVD recorder and get ready, the Doctor is coming back. He's live, He's back and he is on CBC. What a great way to start the Spring season. After over a decade the secret wish, the dream that seemed to fade a bit with each passing year was the return of Doctor Who and now it's true.

With word the BBC was resurrecting the series hit the wire and world it was exciting, then the word CBC was commiting to bring the series to Canada was ecstactic. There was a concern that it would be stuck at some ungodly time of the day, but here it is, coming at Prime Time. The good news, I've got satellite, miss it in my time zone, I can watch it an hour later.

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Sympatico / MSN : News : CTV.caIt is always good to share ones view of the world, so here's another from my world. People have accused me, as reported in this blog, of not being a good conservative. There is a good reason for that and here it is, I am not a conservative. I am far more comfortable on the left side of the political equation. This leads to the next question, why am I not a supported of, say, the Liberals. There is a good reason for that, the Liberals aren't liberal. Take that silly notion out of your mind immediately. They are as liberal as, say the PRI ( Institutionalized Revolutionary Party) of Mexico is a Revolutionary Party. You can read some notes about the PRI here.
If you read the link at the opening you can understand that the Liberal Party of Canada is not liberal, it is a tired, corrupt organization that pretends to be liberal but has in fact become a means of providing perks to the friends of the Prime Minister. What is rather amusing is a comment near the end of the article, let me quote:
Jean Lapierre, Prime Minister Paul Martin's Quebec lieutenant has insisted the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party was free of tainted funds because it had a $3.9-million debt when Martin became party leader in November 2003. Actually that was never part of the equation, no one accused the Party of benefiting from the scandel, it's always been about the Friends of the PM receiving the spoils of the pillage.
You see, what usually happens is that every so many years the Liberal get turfed out,usually after the become tired, corrupt and inefficient. Now that should have happened in the last election, however the burghers of Ontario, my fair province decided a corrupt government is better then one with a leader from Alberta, namely the Conservative Party of Canada. So the Liberals remain in power with all their problems and have not been allowed to go through their period of penance and cleansing that is required of them every decade or so.
The end result will be until that time comes, more government waste, more corruption and a more incompetent government.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

to me, one of the easist gigs in the world has got to be a liberal commentator in America. After all GWB practically writes their material for them. I mean what's not to target, you have the continuing misadventure that is Iraq; a place where brave Americans are dying for, now what was that reason again? to the deficit, the huge burden that's being placed on the shoulders of future generations to the now below the surface but still potentially embarassing Enron debacle.

Let's not forget the latest which is GWB plan for social security. He wants everyone to throw their potential retirement income onto the stock market where they can invest in companies such as; Enron, Qwest and other winners.

I should say that I do have investments in mutual funds, but I tell you I'm not putting all my future income there.

Yet, they don't seem to be able to get anywhere; I wonder if it's because one of their 'stars' is Janeane Garofalo; a woman who invented the phrase not funny comedian. She's a comic in search of both material and a comedic sense of timing.

But to continue, you could consider the economy, here's one article. You know your country is going down the tube when Canada, my fair dominion, is beating the crap out of you in the financial front. Hey, this makes it good to be a Canadian. After getting our teeth kicked during the 90's and early 00's we're now on top looking down.

You know if they could only see beyond the nonsense, they will realize one thing; they are set up to win big.

Monday, March 07, 2005

It's rather ironic that the US is demanding Syria pull out of Lebanon. First of all, this is a laudable desire, Syria should end their occupation of Lebanon. They entered as occupiers, no matter what Hezbullah says, they came to occupy a sovereign nation. Yes Lebanon was going through a difficult civil war, which was inspired by the Syrian backed Hezbullah, by the way.

Now it is time for them to leave.

It's also time for the US to consider their exit strategy from Iraq. Forget the rhetoric, they are occupiers. They invaded a sovereign nation under dubious reasoning and not a shred of evidence of either a) weapons of mass destruction or b) connection with Al-Qaida. Although I do believe Saddam did have WMD which he used on his own people.

But the problem, how to leave Iraq without the whole nation blowing up in a huge and ugly civil war? The next question is what about the oil? who will profit from the reserves that are in Iraq, the Iraqi people or the oil friends of George W. Bush?

Perhaps on one level this makes no sense, after all, what does a rock star know about the intricacies of global finances and financing. On the other, it was the actions of the World Bank pressing an agenda of monitarism and globalization that precisely led to the impoverishment of the third world. Yes Bono is not a banker, but then again, he understands poverty.

As mentioned it is the LA Times and yes where else, after all, what other state would elect an actor as governor, not once but twice. So it only makes sense that the entertainment capital of the world would consider an entertainer for the job. However Bono's passion for the development of the third world and the ending of poverty makes him a pretty good candidate. After all, it has been the policies of the World Bank that brought about the problems so perhaps another point of view would make a positive difference.

You can read the editorial here.
Honestly, while it probably won't happen, it does make you think.

My quest for an Ipod Mini still continues. Sadly the auction ended and so I wait for something other then pink to show up at my local Best Buy. Well, I have to go past it this Thursday and that will be opportunity to stop and see. If I am fortunately, perhaps another open box item will appear, like magic.